Army Corps: Rain will not stop river-clearing plan

By: PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer | Tuesday, February 28, 2006 10:33 PM PST ∞

OCEANSIDE ---- Despite a rain-soaked riverbed, the Army Corps of Engineers says it will still try to clear the San Luis Rey River channel before nesting season begins March 15.

"We have already completed a half-mile of (preclearing) marking in the river channel and we have equipment prepositioned in the vicinity," said Jay Field, a spokesman for the Army Corps said Tuesday afternoon.

Field said the Corps' Los Angeles district office dispatched a courier with an environmental document to the Oceanside Public Works Department on Tuesday. Once the city receives the signed environmental document, the public works director, Peter Weiss, said he must have it delivered to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the state Water Quality Control Board so that each state agency can issue its own permit before any channel-clearing work can begin.

"We are committed to getting this turned around within 24 hours from when we finally get the paperwork from the Corps," Weiss said. "We are going to do everything we can to stand by that commitment."

The Corps first promised in early December that it would begin a 125-foot-wide clearing effort along the banks of the San Luis Rey to remove dense stands of trees and other plants that have clogged the city's seven-mile flood control levee system in recent years.

The city and the Corps have said that the overgrown vegetation poses a flood risk if significant rain falls within the San Luis Rey's 558-square-mile drainage area, which stretches past Palomar Mountain and Valley Center.

With a winter storm moving through San Diego County late Monday and early Tuesday, the Corps activated an emergency management plan for the river.

However, just as the Corps predicted, the storm did not come close to dropping enough rain to cause any flooding.

According to a U.S. Geological Survey monitoring station, river flows reached 163 cubic feet per second, far below the 10,000 cubic feet per second that would have sent Corps' bulldozers into the riverbed for an emergency mowing operation.

By comparison, heavy rain that fell in North County in January and February 2005 produced a peak flow of 11,700 cubic feet per second, enough to wash out the Pacific Street river crossing, but not enough to dislodge vegetation in the riverbed.

When and if the Corps does finally get around to starting its clearing effort, Field said that mowers will be very careful to avoid the nesting areas of endangered birds. With nesting season for those birds starting March 15, the Corps has only two weeks to complete the entire project.

"We've got our fingers crossed," Field said. "The contractors know that they have a very narrow window in order to get the work finished before nesting season starts."

In December, the Corps promised the Oceanside City Council that it would send mowers into the river channel in January. However, the start kept getting pushed back because the Corps was unable to finish environmental paperwork as quickly as it had hoped.

"It is a complex process. It is not as easy as people think," Field said.

Previous stories


Oceanside, Army Corps on alert for river flooding

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/02/25/news/coastal/21_04_062_24_06.txt

Army Corps: Plants in riverbed could cause severe flooding

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/11/20/news/coastal/22_43_3011_19_05.txt

Related link


USGS San Luis Rey river flow rates

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ca/nwis/dv?format=html&period=730&site_no=11042000

Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.